Lyse Doucet on accents in Broadcasting

February 17, 2016

The BBC’s multi-award winning Chief International Correspondent has the most interesting broadcaster’s accent. On the Radio 4 programme One to One she talked about her voice to Jan Ravens, the woman from Dead Ringers who often impersonates Lyse and many other famous women.

I was taken by what Lyse said about accents. The plummy BBC accent is long gone and there are many broadcasters in the UK who represent the wide spectrum of accents from these islands and beyond.

“Your voice, your accent is as much a part of your personality as the colour of your face, as your name and you can’t over estimate when you say it’s a personal insult when people say your accent is wrong.”

The programme was broadcast yesterday and is available on iPlayer at time of writing this post.